CHAPTER IV DATA ANALYSIS
4.4 Recommendation
nuggets, and a coke provided at 160 THB. Besides, if any menu could not make their stomach full, they evaluated that menu is not value worthy of price.
To conclude, although many previous researches had already revealed the critical factors that made customer satisfaction in fast food restaurants, the dimension that respondents in each country concerned the most are different. It is based on their cross-cultural implication. For example, US surveyed respondents concerned the most about food price and assurance dimension especially the knowledgeable employees.
Korean respondents concerned the most about reliability and empathy (Lee and Ulgado, 1997). And Thai respondents concerned the most about dimension of reliability and Tangibles. Furthermore, regards to the ASIAN countries such as India, China and Thailand, they are collectivism and their concept of fast food is to get a new food experience. Although they concern about the similar dimensions such as reliability, tangibles and responsiveness, they still concern in the different factors of each dimension. For Indian people, they prioritized their top three factors as food taste and quality, followed by ambience and hygiene, and speed respectively (Goyal and Singh, 2007). Chinese people concern the most on waiting time, followed by staff’s courteous and food quality (Law et al., 2004). Thai people concern the most on food taste, fast service and cleanliness. It reveals that customer expectation toward fast food restaurants in each country varies according to the cross-culture implication.
Therefore, fast food restaurant chains have to play different roles in each country.
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to make recommends to the referring theories in this paper and to a fast food owners on how to run a business more effectively and efficiently in terms of maximizing the satisfaction of consumers, the recommendations are based on these below.
4.4.1 Recommendation to Theory
First, the theory cites that all 3 dimensions which are service, food and perceive value are the same important factors for affecting the customer satisfaction.
Based on the findings, these 3 dimensions do not have the same important levels.
Consumers give priority to food, followed by service and perceived value respectively.
“Food” and “Service” are 2 main determinants of Thai customer satisfaction in fast food restaurant chains. The findings show that taste, fast service and cleanliness are in the first rank. And the most important factor which consumers visit is to dining the unique taste of fast food product. As Min and Min (2011) indicated that taste of food was the most important service factors which had not been changed over time.
Furthermore, although consumers concern price as the third rank but the range of affordable price is quite high from 35-300 THB. It shows that as long as consumers are satisfied with taste and service, they are willing to pay for this average fast food price. Moreover price of fast food normally is in the average price that every class of society can afford. For this reason, we can less concern about “perceived value” as the main factor affecting the customer’s satisfaction.
Second, marketers often segment consumers by age. The basic logic is that people in the same age usually go through similar life experience which may lead to similar consumption behavior (Hoyer & Maclnnis, 1997). However, Thai consumers in age range between 15-29 years old have the similar common perception towards their satisfaction in fast food restaurant. Although the age gap of survey respondents is quite large, their tolerant zone in each main factors are similar. Hence, teenagers and young adults can be the same group of benefit segmentation to design the marketing strategy. For example, the standard of fast service is between 5-10 minutes. And the maximum time they can wait is 30 minutes. However, individual’s zone of tolerance toward each factor might be different a little bit depending on purpose of visit as well.
The young adults might concern more about fast service than teenagers, but if their purpose is to wait someone, they don’t care much about this factor. Besides, the zone
of tolerance can be extended by adding stimuli during a time interval. Hogan (1978) assumed that simple stimuli such as easy-listening music might decrease perceived duration. But complex stimuli such as a difficult task might increase it. According to Pruyn & Smidts (1998), television entertainment during the wait extends the perceived waiting time. The stimuli added in each situation can change the individual’s perception. For example, the zone of tolerance in fast service is between 5-10 minutes.
But if on that day, a consumer comes with her friend; her zone of tolerance can be extended to 20 minutes without any dissatisfaction.
Third, in order to make consumers visit and become royal customers, a fast food restaurant chain doesn’t need to completely make customers reach their desired level in each main factor or in 3 dimensions of perception. If fast food restaurants can make customers highly satisfied their key factor and control its consistency, meanwhile, they still keep other factors in the medium standard consistency. It is enough to make fast food business succeed. Desired consistency is very important to the success of any chain restaurant. Consistency between units and between visits reassures customers that they will meet the food, service and atmosphere as their expectations based on past experiences. Consistently positive experience at a restaurant helps to increase brand value and often lead to future visits (WD partners, 2012).
4.4.2 Recommendation to Application
To maximize the fast-food customer satisfaction, this paper would like to recommend the fast-food owners in 4 points.
First, fast food owners should emphasize on “food consistency”. Lack of food consistency can be implied to losing sight of unique core strength (WD partners, 2012). For Thai customer perception, taste is one of the 3 most important factors (Patcharanukulkit et al., 2002). If customers are not impressed with the taste, they might move to other restaurants without concerning other factors. Based on interviewing data, although respondents are satisfied with the taste of fried chicken, but they complain about the food consistency in all menus including fried chicken.
Therefore, if the restaurants can manage this problem, it will increase level of
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customer satisfaction by reaching their desired expectation. Then they will choose to buy and have a meal at this fast food restaurant more often.
Second, Thai fast food consumers have a tendency to be variety seeking.
Their motivations to visit fast food restaurants were to experience something new and to add more experience to their food choice (Patcharanukulkit et al., 2002). Besides, some survey respondents concern about the food variety. Hence, fast food owners should emphasize on creating new taste or new products continuously. However, customers always order the signature menu of each fast food restaurants more than to taste the new products. For example, all survey respondents always order fried chicken at KFC because it is the main reason why they visit KFC. Other menus such as dessert and snack are not concerned by them. Therefore, to create a variety of food should mean to develop based on the signature dish in order to get more choices such as new taste or new cooking method for fried chicken. It is better than to create new desserts or new milk shakes that affect customer satisfaction slightly. Except the signature menu, fast food operators should focus on the products which help to increase customer’s appetite during dining the main dish. Based on interview data, french fries is the side dish that make customers enjoy eating fried chicken. And now french fries in KFC is not delicious. If fast food owners can find the right side dish, they can increase both customer satisfaction and sales amount at the same time.
Third, speed is one of the most important factors to service industry. To increase customer satisfaction of perceived waiting time, this paper recommends using the waiting time guarantee. Kumar et al. (1997), suggested fast food owners to offer customers with waiting time guarantees. Customers were satisfied if the waiting time was actually shorter than the guaranteed time limit. Dharmawiryal et al. (2012) introduced two common approaches in dealing with service time. First was to design new operation flow that help minimize actual queuing and service times. Second approach was to manage customer perception. Based on interviewing data, respondents are quite satisfied if staffs will serve food at their table instead of waiting food in long queue. For this data, the fast food restaurants can create the quick-service perception by serving food in customer’s seat if they have to wait for food or wait a long queue. Besides, Sulek and Hensley (2004) suggested that furnishing and decoration impact on customer’s perceived waiting times. The more uncomfortable
furnishing and non-appealing decoration, the more customers perceived longer waiting times. Moreover, Davis & Heineke (1994) suggested that while queuing, customers who were occupied tend to perceive shorter waiting time than the customers who were unoccupied. Therefore, this paper recommends occupying customers by turning on audio-visual or television sets in the queuing locations to minimize their perceived waiting time.
Fourth, restaurant cleanliness is considered one of the most significant factors when fast food consumers decide their levels of satisfaction. According to the interview data, all respondents emphasize on physical environments such as table, floor and food containers because it is the easiest way to notice. However, according to the perception of Asian people regarding a restaurant’s cleanliness, Seung (2012) prioritized the most 3 significant dimensions. The server’s behavior such as contact with food by using bare hands was ranked as the most important dimension. The second most important dimension was restroom appearance. Cleaning signage and restaurant inspection score were ranked the third position. Hence, the study would like to recommend fast food owners to focus on these 3 dimensions, especially restroom hygiene. Survey finds that restroom cleanliness leads to fast food restaurant success. A dirty restroom in a fast food restaurant can result in lost revenue, fewer guests, and a poor reputation. Moreover, a clean restroom can lead to reduce staff turnover and an improved guest experience. Employees working in fast food restaurant with clean restrooms feel good about their working environment and more likely to be proud of their jobs (QSR magazine, 2013).
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